Life is different, very different but I don’t think I have the enthusiasm to pick up the things that are on offer. Perhaps it’s too hard – to step out of the door and build a new life…… the me I used to be doesn’t seem to be here anymore….. or perhaps this is me and the other me was just a façade that enabled me to do the job I had to do?

I knew leaving everyone behind would be tough, but I don’t think I was prepared for feeling so alien! There’s a lot to be said for driving home along familiar routes that hold the memories you’ve grown up with, and very little to be said for driving home where nothing means anything, nothing connects to the person I am. And it’s not just the physical environment……. I’m constantly encountering attitudes and an outlook that I don’t share.

Enough of the self-indulgence though – it’s not all doom and gloom…….. there are so many positives to being here – Birmingham’s thriving cultural scene on my doorstep (once I shake off this lethargy and get out there to find it!), easy access to places via a well-connected transport network and , of course, family….. the point of this whole exercise!

They have to be the one huge plus out of this whole business……. whilst allowing for the irritations of any close family! I see them two or three times a week, whereas before it was once every month or maybe six weeks. Sunday lunch with Mum has become the norm (now the new kitchen is finally finished!) – and Friday night fish ‘n’ chips too! Shopping trips with my daughter-in-law (who can shop for England believe me) where we have reached a mutual misunderstanding – K searches every aisle in every shop in case there’s something she might need, or a bargain to be had, while I go straight to the item on my list and only browse the stores that really grab my interest or serve my purpose for the day. My granddaughter calls in on her way home from school (providing Nanna keeps the cake tin replenished!); she sleeps over when Mum and Dad have an early start for work the next day; we bake together; we watch films together; we share music (hmm….. more hers than mine!!) and I am able to experience the glorious, unpredictability of an hormonal 12 year old girl at first hand instead of having it recounted to me by phone or text!

And I have made new friends….. three individuals so far who I get on well with, seem to have hit it off with and are turning into regular contacts for coffee, lunch, Tai Chi and craft sessions (interestingly all three having moved into the area recently), a lively group of ladies I meet for lunch in Birmingham each month, plus other faces becoming more familiar day by day.

Oh how I miss the familiar faces of friends though, and the places we used to go. Sitting for a coffee or a meal with someone who knows me through and through, who knows why I think the way I think, why I am the way I am, the people who have shared the highs and lows of my life with. Yes they’re all still there – just a call or a text or a PM or a FB photo away…… yes they’re just 200 miles along the motorway away, just a 3-4 hour drive away …….. but sometimes it might as well be the other side of the world!

My granddaughter was playing with a bubble wand in the garden this morning and I sat happily snapping away. Looking through the images with her later I realised I had also caught the blurred reflection of the house so it seemed the ideal one for this week’s photo challenge.